


Five ways Ray and Ray redefined romance

by sli



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-23
Updated: 2014-05-23
Packaged: 2018-01-26 05:19:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1676192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sli/pseuds/sli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Zabira is beta love.</p><p>Written for due South Seekrit Santa 2007.<br/>http://crocolanthus.com/dsss/archive/3/fiveways.html</p>
    </blockquote>





	Five ways Ray and Ray redefined romance

**Author's Note:**

> Zabira is beta love.
> 
> Written for due South Seekrit Santa 2007.  
> http://crocolanthus.com/dsss/archive/3/fiveways.html

**1.**

The thing was, when Ray got back from finding the hand of Franklin (which was disgusting and shriveled and missing a couple of fingers), he was partnered with this guy Morricone, a lazy bastard who hummed _all the time_. In the bullpen and in the car and on stakeouts and during interrogations, until Ray slammed him up against the wall and said he'd hum better with no teeth and volunteered to help.

Then he didn't have a partner for a while, and he didn't have Fraser or Stella or Frannie or Huey or Dewey either, and the new guys at the 2-7 were all even-tempered pod aliens sent to infiltrate human society and report back what they learned, though nobody else believed him on that, and even _Welsh_ had taken to smiling and clasping people supportively on the shoulder. Ray really hoped that meant he was lucky in love and not that he was a pod alien, too.

If Ray'd been feeling introspective he might have realized there was something missing from his life, something besides sex and a balanced diet and his best friend slash partner and his ex-wife slash best friend, but mainly he just felt bored, which amounted to the same thing.

But even without that nugget of self knowledge, when Vecchio landed back in Chicago and got hired back onto the force and assigned as Ray's partner, Ray was so happy to see him that he left off punishing the copy machine for its many crimes against humanity to give him a hug. "Style Pig!" he said, beaming and slapping Vecchio on the back hard enough to make him go _oof_. "Welcome back to the real world."

Vecchio shoved him away, looking down (and down and down) his nose and calling him 'Stanley,' and they were off, poking and digging and elbowing and crowding, and it was like getting into the ring with a contender after a string of lightweights.

Ray grinned and cracked his knuckles and got in Vecchio's face, and Vecchio planted his feet and narrowed his eyes and Ray would've bet five bucks was seriously considering head-butting him when Barry and Mancini (who weren't just pod aliens but were _the exact same_ pod alien) broke it up.

While Ray was cooling off and doing a little victory dance in the john, Vecchio moved back into his old desk, piling Ray's stuff on the _floor_ , so Ray got the new guys to tell Vecchio all about the power of positive thinking while he wandered off to tell the civilian aide the sad story of the mysterious infection Vecchio brought back from his hush-hush undercover job.

After work, they got in a fistfight, both trying to defend Stella's honor. It was the best day Ray'd had in months.

 

 

**2.**

Hands down the worst thing about with partnering with Vecchio was how computers hated him every bit as much as they hated Ray. That wasn't fair or right or just, and he would file an official complaint if he knew where to send it. They shared the same desk in the bullpen, switching sides whenever Ray got the drop on Vecchio or the other way around. Vecchio was _sneaky_ and he probably cheated.

So Ray sat in his rolling chair on the wrong side of their desk, paperwork propped on his knee as he filled in names and dates and evidence (Vecchio's famous nose technique, backed up by Jimmy Reid, scumball and snitch) longhand while Vecchio tip tip tapped on his typewriter.

Vecchio was pushing his lips out as he frowned at the keys, and Ray got distracted. Everything about Vecchio looked hard and soft at the same time. Hard, soft eyes. Hard, soft mouth. Hard, soft hands. And how did he keep his clothes all smooth like that? Five minutes in that shirt, and Ray would look like _Gigolo: The Morning After, Part II._

Vecchio glanced up, caught him looking, and raised an eyebrow, so he rat tat tatted his pen against the stack of reports and made something up. "My next partner's gonna be female. I miss working with someone pretty, you know? And she'll type like--" he reached out his hands to demonstrate super-speed typing, with just enough extra spaz to make Vecchio jerk back "--and she'll make me brownies. I like brownies. No nuts."

Instead of rolling his eyes, Vecchio said, "Huh," like Ray had just given him some serious food for thought. Which Ray was pretty sure he had not; even he had no idea what he was talking about sometimes.

But when Ma Vecchio tried to teach the kids how to make _struffoli_ (which was basically a fancy donut, and the strongest reason Ray'd found yet for Italian pride), Vecchio brought him a dozen and then gave him shit for disrespecting a fine automobile with his eating habits, so maybe that communication thing was working out just fine.

 

 

**3.**

Vecchio was right there with him on the gray Tuesday morning after the Ames family took a poor sap beat cop hostage. They'd been tracking the Ameses all night, and now, through the grimy, yellow-tinted skylight, they could just make out Officer Cho tied to a chair and Sissie Ames pacing in front of him. Sissie was the scary one, the family psycho, and Ray could feel Vecchio tense beside him. Vecchio wasn't a big fan of torture, and they both knew that Sissie was.

Ray tilted his head towards Vecchio, ducking his chin, asking, _backup?_

Vecchio nodded and shrugged, _Coming, coming, where the fuck are they?_ his eyes drawn back down to the scene below.

When the backup did arrive, it arrived stupid, arrived loud, and next to him Vecchio shifted, muscles tensing, so Ray launched himself first, smashing through the glass and landing with a crash and a thud and a twisted ankle in the room below, distracting Sissie long enough so the uniforms could get in safely and take control.

When he caught his breath, his ankle was killing him, Ma and Pa and Sissie and Edwin and little Gus Ames were all cuffed and swearing eternal vengeance, Cho was still in one piece, and Vecchio had come down from the roof in some less painful way than jumping. He was stalking around the room with a furious scowl under his knit cap, his long wool coat billowing as he prowled and chewed out the uniforms. Ray found a handy wall to lean against, closed his eyes and thought _at least the coat's okay_ and _getting broken glass out of that would've sucked_.

A hand rested on his shoulder, and he blinked his eyes open to see Vecchio right there, green eyes intense on Ray's face. Ray grinned, cocky, _I'm okay, I'm good_ , and Vecchio muttered, "Crazy idiot," and thwapped him on the side of the head.

 

 

**4.**

They spent pretty much every working minute together, but didn't exactly hang out together outside of work until Frannie got herself impregnated by the amazing invisible lieutenant. Then, seemingly overnight, Vecchio got dark circles under his eyes and started following Ray home to drink his beer and watch his TV.

"Get a place of your own," Ray told him, clinging fiercely to his remote. "They list 'em in the paper and everything."

"I own a five-bedroom house and half a bowling alley, and there's a bassinet in my bedroom. If I get an apartment somebody else will just move in and take it over," Vecchio explained from the kitchen, banging pots around. "How does a human being live without a colander?"

Ray turned the volume up high and ignored him, but the pasta Vecchio served up was spicy and rich and made even zucchini taste good. Ray ate a huge bowl and then licked a last dollop of sauce off his thumb with a satisfied moan.

Vecchio was sprawled out in Ray's armchair with his own bowl balanced in one hand, his white shirt unbuttoned at the neck and not a drop of sauce on him. "What?" Vecchio asked. "Sauce on my face, what?"

Ray kept smiling and rubbed his full belly, feeling goofy and satisfied. "You complete me," he told Vecchio, then swung his legs up and stretched out on the couch, giving his stomach the room it needed.

"Oh, Kowalski, you sap." Warm amusement in Vecchio's voice, and Ray, content, let him have control of the remote for twenty whole minutes.

 

 

**5.**

Dominique's long legs and long hair and long looks up and down from under her long eyelashes were all walking out of the 2-7 and out of their lives, down the street, turning left, and Ray leaned helplessly to the right, watching her to the last possible second. "Damn," he said, shaking his head, and opened his mouth to ask Vecchio where he wanted to eat dinner.

"What, was that you _flirting_?" Vecchio cackled. "Because that explains a _lot_."

"No," Ray lied, resisting the urge to kick him in the shins. "What about you?"

And because Vecchio's eyes were shining and his smile was sweet and mean in perfect proportion, and because Ray was no idiot, he shoved his hands in his rear pockets and widened his stance a little. He pulled his lower lip through his teeth and lifted his chin, met Vecchio's eyes and thought _suck you all night long_ , thought _make you feel it_.

Vecchio's breath hissed in satisfyingly, though his voice and eyes stayed almost steady. "Right," he said. "Seoul Kitchen or Lao Tze Chuan?"

Ray grinned and tilted a little closer to Vecchio, their cheeks almost brushing. "Lao Tze Chuan," he said softly. "The booths in the back."

And Ray Vecchio, standing on the sidewalk in front of the 2-7, pulled his coat closed and walked stiffly down the block to the GTO.

Ray walked behind him, then leaned against the passenger door, brushing Vecchio's hip with his wrist as he turned the key in the lock.

"Ready?" he asked, fraying a little from want and fear and need and whatever else he kept bottled up inside.

And when Vecchio said, low and determined and, yeah, that was a voice he needed to hear more of, "Get in the car, Kowalski," he did.

  
 

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